Prequel Part 3

Online dating for married lesbians 

Well it is finally here: the third installment of Mac the Prequel. I’m sorry that it took so long but I have been busy working out the details for a special announcement. This post is being brought to you in conjunction with Co-parentmatch.com.  At the risk of giving away spoilers for the upcoming post, you should know that Co-parentmatch.com is where we met our Andy. So, they have our heart and we’d happily recommend them even if they weren’t giving us stuff (which, of course, they are because they are awesome on top of awesome but I’m getting ahead of myself). According to their website they are the "largest and most comprehensive online site for people who are either looking for a co-parenting partner or sperm donor match... Co-ParentMatch.com was originally set up by a UK based lesbian couple searching for a co-parent. With little option out there but sperm banks and unregulated forum sites Co-ParentMatch.com was born. The site now offers a regulated environment for singles and couples of any sexuality, nationality, colour or creed to meet their potential parenting partner." 

If you’d like to read more about their terms and conditions you can do so here. However, what you won’t read about on their website is that beyond hosting it to make a profit the team at Co-parentmatch.com really REALLY wants to see you succeed in your parenting goals. When I sent them an email to let them know about Mac’s arrival the response I received was as warm and congratulatory as if it was coming from my own family.

And with that, are you wondering what my announcement is? Well wait no longer – Co-parentmatch.com is giving away ten (yes ten!) free memberships to Mondays with Mac readers!! I realize that many of you reading this blog are not in need of a co-parent or sperm donor match but my guess is that you know someone who is. Your lesbian niece, gay best friend, single sister – they might all be interested in this amazing opportunity. So pass them the information or enter on their behalf. What you do with the prize is up to you. All it takes is a moment to enter, ten minutes to fill in a profile on the site, and before you know it you could be holding one of these in your arms: 

Seriously!  Check out all of the contest details here. But now, on to the prequel!

If you missed the last installment of this story you can read it here. The quick summary is that Tracy was already in her thirties and my thirtieth birthday was fast approaching. My biological clock had gone way beyond ticking and was now making my bones vibrate with a very loud banging. It had turned into Quasimodo, ringing the bell loud enough for all the townspeople to hear. And by “townspeople” I mean every.cell.in.my.body.  We wanted a baby – so so much – and our dog was the one suffering the most.

And this is why lesbians in their thirties who want children should not own small dogs

 After a number of failed attempts at finding our Mr. Right online Tracy was ready to give up. She was getting a little sick of messages from men wanting to have threesomes filling up our inboxes.  Like in all other aspects of our life, however, I was much more stubborn.

Tracy: Do you remember the kitchen backsplash debacle of 2008? I feel a repeat coming on.

Me: You could not have made my argument any better if you tried. Yes, I looked at every tile for sale in the entire city. Yes, I devoted a solid week of my life to tiles and barely slept obsessing over glass versus ceramic. And yes, I made us drive all the way to Hawksbury (an hour and a half away) and had to speak in broken French to the store owner. But did we not get the exact right tiles for half the price? If I put all that effort into backsplash tiles don’t you think we should do a more thorough search for the father of our child?

Tracy: Fine. But can you at least make dinner first? 

So I made my wife dinner and then got back on the internet. Everything in my heart told me that I wanted to give my child the opportunity to know his/her father. I knew it could be messy and complicated (it is) but I also knew it could be beautiful and rewarding (it so is). If we couldn't find the exact right guy I would have happily gone the sperm bank route but I just wasn't there yet.  After an excessive amount of googling things like “where to find a sperm donor online” I finally stumbled across the website Co-parentmatch.com. The website lets you sign-up and look at profiles but if you want to contact someone you have to pay a fee. Like all things in life I guess you get what you pay for. Our foray into free matching sites had not gone well and we were ready to fork over some cash to meet our Mr.Right.  The next few hours were spent pouring over every possible Canadian donor. There were some seemingly great guys looking to donate and/or co-parent in Canada but nobody that gave me that It’s Him! feeling. Not easily discouraged, I decided to broaden my search. The border to New York State is only a few hours away so I decided to start there. 

I scrolled through a few profiles, not really knowing what I was looking for but confident that I’d know when I saw it, and then… there he was. I imagine this is what it feels like when cartoon characters see an ice tea stand in the middle of the dessert.  He had four profile pictures up – and he looked adorable in all of them. As I type this I realize that ‘adorable’ probably wasn’t the adjective he was hoping for but it’s the one that fits for me. 

Andy's real profile

Beyond his good looks, his profile said all the things I was hoping to hear. He wrote about how he was looking to father a child and have some involvement in his/her life but was not looking to parent. In less than three sentences I could tell that he was articulate and charming. But he really got me when he said that he was prepared for the process to take a while and wanted to get to know the mother(s) before making any decisions. Prior to Andy, all of the emails I received from men had us meeting-up the following week and they seemed happy to give away their sperm without knowing anything more than our names and the city we lived in. And we weren’t even using our real names.

So I looked at his profile. And then I forwarded it to Tracy at work. And then I looked at it again. And then I forwarded it to a friend. And then I looked at it again. And then Tracy got home and we looked at it together.  And then she walked the dog and I looked at it again. In total, I probably looked at his profile 16 times. What I didn’t realize at the time was that he had a paid account and was getting an email every time I looked at his profile! So much for playing it cool!

Tracy is usually much more level headed than I am. She has the kind of personality that always looks for the reasons why something won’t work first. And then, once she has worked through all of the possible problems, she is able to consider the possibility. I expected her to pick apart his profile, to find a single word that turned her off or characteristic that didn’t interest her. At the very least, I expected her to conclude that the logistics of using a New York City donor while we were in Ottawa Ontario would make things too difficult to bother trying.  Instead, she pulled out her credit card and told me to message him. I bought the six-month membership that cost me about $50 (little did I know, I really only needed a one day membership as Andy was the first and last person we messaged). But that might have been the best $50 I’ve ever spent.

It took me a good hour to write a four sentence private message. I worried that a message coming from a couple of lesbians in Ottawa would seem completely out of left field for him (which, as it turns out, it was since he had never even heard of Ottawa and referred to it as Ottowa for the first few months of our online interactions… but more about that next time). We sat in our bedroom in sweatpants and hooded sweatshirts but we had gotten married the year before so we had plenty of pictures of us looking our best to share (it occurred to me that this was simply a very strange form of online dating).

I can’t remember everything that I said in that first email. And I can’t remember everything that he said either. But I’m a big believer in signs and it turned out that he already had a trip to Montreal (a less than two hour drive away from us) planned for a few weeks later. Kismet! Serendipity! Luck! Fate! Shirley! I don’t know what it was but I was convinced he was the one. It was a gay fairytale for the digital age – love at first email. And more about that next time.

Please vote for me by clicking on the image below.